


A Wing and A Prayer

by Daiako (Achrya)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, M/M, Magic, Post-Break Up, Wing Grooming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Daiako
Summary: Asahi needs some help getting his wings back in order after a game. Noya is only too happy to lend a hand in sorting Asahi out, and hopeful about what it might mean.





	A Wing and A Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> Set in some kind of nondescript modern supernatural/fantasy omegaverse AU. Unspecified ages but I sort of imagined college age. Could also be set at a residential high school though. Alpha Noya/Omega Asahi.

They showered in the locker room, rush jobs to make them presentable for the family restaurant they storm to celebrate their win, but it left them in need of another pass once they’re back at the dorms. They broke apart when they left the van, the still boisterous and keyed up first years heading for the gym, too loud words and sharp sarcasm trailing them, the thoughtful duo of Suga and Daichi with their heads tilted close together as they followed Ukai and Takeda to look at footage from the game, and a stern Ennoshita corralling the second years, save Yuu, towards their respective dorms. 

Yuu hung back, waiting for Asahi to disembark and gather up his things before falling into step with him to walk the path to the omega dorms. It was an old ritual between them, walking side by side under the light of the waxing moon, and it had been easy to fall back into once they’d both returned to the team. It wasn’t to say that everything had just patched itself up or was settled now, but it had felt right to pick up where they’d left off like this. 

Some things were still beyond them, would take time, words that Asahi wasn’t good with, and feelings that were near impossible for Yuu to make come out right to mend, but Yuu was willing to wait, and take what was here, now. The warmth of Asahi’s voice, the rumble of his laughter when Yuu recounted how Ennoshita had made Tanaka laugh so hard he’d snorted milk out his nose at lunch, the way long fingers sometimes brushed the bare skin of his arm...just Asahi, at his side, smiling at him, where for months he’d been lucky to catch even a glimpse of him across campus. 

He’d thought this was gone and even weeks after finding that it wasn’t, that they hadn’t broken apart so badly that they didn’t fit anymore, he was still, sometimes, amazed that it wasn’t. 

“Do you-” Asahi stopped just short of the front door of the omega dorms, a squat brick building a bit on the crumbling side and near swallowed by thick curtains of ivy. He looked down at Yuu, plump lower lip pulled between his teeth as dark brown eyes darted back and forth nervously. Yuu waited, feet shuffling as he watched the omega worth through whatever it was he was trying to find the right way to say. 

He wouldn’t say he was waiting patiently, that wasn’t his speed at all, but he managed to keep from looking away or barking at Asahi to hurry up or even physically trying to prod him into speaking. He fidgeted a little, each passing second a heavy weight on his shoulders and more anticipation making his stomach roll. Whatever it was Asahi was working up to looked serious from the way a line formed between his furrowed brows and his teeth were pressing so tightly to his lip the color was forced out, and-

“Do you want to come up?” Asahi’s near shouted, eyes squinted show and hands curled into fists at his side. Then, hastily, before Yuu could begin to process fully, he added. “To use my shower. Since you have to share with so many people and I only share with Suga, and he’ll be a while, and...yeah. You don’t have to but I thought maybe you. Would...like to.” 

Asahi trailed off, shoulders hunching and head bowing, mouth pinched. Yuu stared, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise. Asahi was asking if he wanted to come inside? It wouldn’t be the first time ever, he’d been a regular enough fixture that he’d been able to identify all the other residents of Asahi’s floor by name, but it would be the first time in...a while. They’d studied together, watched movies, talked about games and practices, and other things all in the quiet comfort of Asahi’s room, and Yuu had never known how much he enjoyed it until it was gone. 

It had been months of not so subtly making his interest in Asahi known before he’d been invited into the omegas dorm the first time around and he’d expected it would be the same this time, assuming it ever happened at all. Not that it mattered, it wasn’t like he thought about bright Sunday mornings waking up in a bed that wasn’t his own, laughing with a sleep clogged throat as he hurried to redress and slip out without being noticed, or the heat of Asahi’s body wrapped around his own, or just sitting side by side, soaking in each other’s company. 

At least he didn’t think about it much. 

Asahi turned away, lips tilting downward. “Nevermind. I shouldn’t have...it’s fine. You don’t have to, it was silly to-” 

“No!” Yuu shouted, painfully aware that he’d been staring and not speaking. Asahi flinched back, eyes huge and round, and Yuu jumped forward, caught his hands in his own. “I mean yes! I mean! I want to! Come up. With you. Now. ...to. Use the shower?” 

Asahi blinked rapidly, startled, before his expression melted into a soft, pleased smile. His hand twisted around, fingers slotting between Yuu’s to catch hold and then tug him towards the door. Yuu followed, heart pounding faster and harder in his chest than it had the first time he’d been invited inside. 

\---

Yuu took the first shower, ushered into the small bathroom between Asahi and Suga’s rooms while the omega muttered something about cleaning up. Yuu hadn’t seen anything that needed to be cleaned, the room looked the same as always. Desk pushed against one wall, mini-fridge with electric kettle set on top next to it, hamper in the farthest corner, and the almost obscenely huge bed dominating most of the space, the many quilts and pillows Yuu was used to see piled up on it. It even smelled the same, Asahi’s warm sugar and cinnamon scent laid over everything and touched with the faintest hint of Chikara’s sharp citrus and Suga’s mellow sea salt. 

There was none of Yuu left there, accidental scent transfer having long since worn away and anything Yuu had scented deliberately returned to him via Chikara when they’d broken up. It set his teeth on edge to think he’d been so easily aired out and cleaned away but the same was true of his room, wasn’t it? He’d viciously scrubbed Asahi away, washed clothes and sheets, sprayed down his mattress and furniture under the sad eyes of his roommates, let the string of anger and what he’d seen as betrayal carry him through the process without a single regret until it was all done. 

And yet when his suspension from the team was up he’d been unable to seriously consider playing without Asahi there as well.

He found an unopened bottle of his favorite body wash stashed under the sink, a thin layer of dust coating the top, and smiled in spite of the pang in his chest.    
The room looked more or less the same when he came out of the bathroom, dressed in his spare practice uniform. Asahi’s laptop had found its way to the bed, some of the pillows on the bed had been moved and stacked up in a corner of the room, and the window above the bed was now cracked open, letting in the warm fall air, but that was all he noticed. And yet Asahi was standing by his bed, hands knitted together in what Yuu knew was an anxious gesture, eyes darting around the room, a pink flush staining the tan of his cheeks. Yuu was tempted to ask but the silence between them was thick and felt too heavy to be moved with his words alone. 

“Um. I’m going to...the shower. Tea, on the desk, and. Um. I might have a pair of your sweats in the closet. I thought...movie, maybe?” He gestured at the laptop and, when Yuu nodded slowly, offered up a fleeting smile before hurrying past him and into the bathroom without another word. 

Yuu picked up the two steaming mugs of tea to move them to the bedside table and, after draping his towel over the back of the desk chair, moved to the closet. One half was taken up by a set of built in drawers and there was only a slight hesitation before Yuu bent down to pull out the bottom one. An old worn pair of sweats and a threadbare t-shirt were all that was down there, two things he hadn’t realized were missing let alone suspected would still be here, tucked away in ‘his’ drawer. 

It was comfortable, slipping back into his pajamas, turning off all but the bedside lamp, and then climbing up onto Asahi’s bed, but strange at the same time. Should it be so easy, so familiar, under his body? Should he feel so welcome falling back into plush pillows and digging his feet under a warm fuzzy blanket, the patter of the shower blocking out the sounds from the other rooms? He leaned back against the headboard, pulled the laptop closer and began to look for something to watch. He’d only just settled on some old black and white sci-fi thing, the sort of movie they could watch and make fun of without Asahi getting too caught up in or bothered by, when the sound of running water stopped. He looked up, watching the bathroom door intently. 

He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding when the door opened and, amidst a wave of heat and thick steam, Asahi stepped out. 

He was just in sleep pants, chest bared and wings free from the magic that usually kept them bound and hidden away. They were folded down against his back but were still more than enough to fill the entire door frame, blotting out all the light from the bathroom. 

Yuu’s mouth went dry. 

Asahi shuffled to the bed, bottom lip once again trapped between his teeth, and fixed uncertain brown eyes on Yuu. His face was red; Yuu wasn’t sure if it was the heat of his shower or blushing at fault. “Would you mind helping me with my wings? Games always ruffle the feathers and I don’t know why I’m telling you that, you already know.” 

He knew. He’d put fingers to silken feathers a few times, had learned to carefully handle them to move them back into place, to start with the outer feather and work in, but to always start at the root to help the natural oils make their way down to the tips, to follow the grain, and when to pluck a hopelessly bent or torn feather away. He knew the downy feathers between Asahi’s shoulder blades and wing sockets, and the bony places where wings melted into flesh at the secondary scapula were the most sensitive. He knew that having someone do the preening for Asahi would always end up walking a line before sending the omega to sleep and working him up so much sleep was impossible. He knew it was special, a sign of trust and closeness, to let someone tend to his wings and that before Yuu Asahi only let family and Suga help him. 

He scrambled to the far side of the room, giving Asahi the space to climb to the middle of the bed and, after pushing a vial and a wide toothed bone comb into Yuu’s hands, stretch out onto his stomach. His wings rustled then spread out to fill much of the bed’s space without extending to their full span, long and full as they were, each nearly equal to Asahi’s height from bottom tip to the highest rounded crest. Yuu didn’t let himself think about what he was doing, about the position he was taking, as he moved to swing one leg over Asahi’s body and settle into the small of his back. 

He was warm. Yuu only just resisted the urge to press fingers greedily to the tanned flesh bared to him, focusing instead on reaching for the feathers laid out before him. He kept his touch light as he began to move the first out of place primary feathers into place, stopping to coat fingertips with wing oil from the vial, using the comb to smooth out clumped or matted bits, blotting away beads of water that hadn’t yet run off with Asahi’s towel. His hands felt clumsy at first, a rare state for him, and he worries that he’d lost his touch, that he’d yank or muss or ruin somehow, that the petal soft feathers were too delicate for him to handle being so out of practice. 

But with time it became easier, fingers going through the motions like they’d been trained to do, slipping down to the secondary wings, over to the scapulars, then back up through the layers until he was combing gently through the coverts, moving them just so until the shape of Asahi’s wing looked right. 

The feathers were in good shape, very well taken care of since the last time Yuu had been lucky enough to take care of them. That meant someone was helping Asahi out, as he’d never been a fan of putting in the work and effort that the task deserves. (He thought excessive preening and grooming was vain and Yuu honestly didn’t know where to start with that beyond telling him that was fucking stupid.) It was a good thing, that Asahi had someone to help with his wing’s upkeep, but at the same time it grated at Yuu to think of someone else like this, sharing such an intimate moment, an intimate...position. 

It was probably Suga, and Yuu knew they did they task with Asahi sitting on the floor, bent forward so Suga could sit in a chair and groom his feathers, and that was nothing to be worried or angry about. And even if it hadn’t been Suga, even if Asahi had invited some other alpha into his room in Yuu’s absence, it wasn’t his business. He didn’t have the right to be upset. 

And yet he ground his teeth together as he took in the healthy sheen and how little work was actually required of him to set everything to rights. 

Asahi was quiet the entire time, only shifting occasionally underneath him or obligingly moving his wing when Yuu asked him too, right up until Yuu was back at the scapulars, where the wings became one with his back. There Asahi let out a quiet gasp and his whole body moved, hips lifting and taking Yuu with them, back curving and the hand lying lazily on the bedspread clenched down on the soft fabric. The moment came and went fast, Asahi flattening himself out with a little cough and an embarrassed glance back at Yuu before burying his face into the pillow his other arm was wrapped around. 

Yuu swallowed hard, face heating as a flush of heat raced through his body before pooling low in his stomach. A few months ago he would have bent forward, dropped a kiss between shoulders and wing joints as he ran his fingers over those downy feathers there, just to get Asahi to make that sound again, but now he bit down on his tongue and forced his attention to the other wing, to begin the process again. 

To someone who didn’t know better Asahi’s wings looked plain. A simple medium brown, suitably glossy and healthy, impressive span but otherwise nothing much to look at. But Yuu, who had taken the time to study them from afar and up close, whose claws had itched to be buried in them the very first time they’d met, a flustered harpy stammering through an introduction to a kitsune, smitten at first witnessed spike, knew they were more than that. Gradients of brown, from deep chestnut to russet, with spots of warm amber lining the edges of his underwings, closer to his shoulders, and flecks of gold that gleamed under the sun when Asahi fully spread his wings. There was depth to them, with no two wings being exactly the same, reddish brown at the tips and deepening in color closer to his body. 

He chased the changes as he worked, compared them to his memory, and smiled faintly along the way. Asahi was like his wings, if Yuu was going to be waxing poetic and thinking about it all far too hard, mild and almost meek at first blush, not worth a second look to most people when there were others who were more vibrant, more forceful, more demanding of attention. But there was more to them, and him, a quiet beauty and strength that had taken Yuu’s breath away and never given it back. There were layers. 

He stopped with his fingers just above the downy feathers covering Asahi’s sensitive back, second wing finished and nothing left to do but draw his fingers through these short, soft ones, straighten and groom, before calling the job down. He wouldn’t have hesitated before, would have gleefully attended to this place he loved to leave for last, but now he wasn’t sure. Was this still his place? Was Asahi inviting him to do this just a step, a show of trust that Yuu could fuck up by pushing too hard, or was it-

Asahi’s hand wrapped around his wrist and tugged him down, forced contact. He felt the omega shiver, long fingers tightening around his wrist for an instant before they slipped away to fall back to the bed. 

“I want you to.” Asahi said, as commanding as it was quiet. Then, a whisper “If you want.” 

Yuu leaned down, other hand flat on the bed to support his weight, and pressed his mouth to one shoulder, then up along the curve until he was nuzzling Asahi’s nape. “I want to.” 

**Author's Note:**

> What I wanted to write: omega Asahi smut. What I wrote: this. What I feel I owe the world: omega Asahi smut.


End file.
